A Teacher from Jilin City Arrested and Tortured

Ms. Li Liwen is a 50-year-old primary schoolteacher from Jilin Province. She helped the most undisciplined kids in the school to become straight "A" students with the principles Truthfulness-Compassion-Forbearance that she learned from Falun Gong. Yet this good teacher was arrested by officers from the Changchunlu Police Station in Chuanying District, Jilin City, just before the opening of the Olympic Games. After being tortured for 42 days, she could barely walk and can no longer take care of herself.

Ms. Li Liwen began practising Falun Gong in 1998. After reading a Falun Gong twice, she became a new person. Since then, she has never accepted any gifts or money from her students and has treated each of them with a kind heart. She won the "Excellent Teacher" award at the district and city levels many times. As her ideals grew loftier, all kinds of illnesses such as heart disease and migraines, which she used to suffer from, disappeared, and she no longer needed to take any medication.

After the persecution of Falun Gong began on July 20th, 1999, she was arrested and sentenced to a forced labour camp, because she insisted that Falun Gong is good. Many times the school tried to force her to write a guarantee statement, and she was transferred to a school that was 20 kilometres away from her home. No matter where she worked, she followed the principles of Truthfulness-Compassion-Forbearance. The attitude of the parents of her students changed from not accepting her to respecting her.

On the morning of June 24th, 2008, three policemen who had been waiting outside of her home for a long time broke into her house as she stepped out the door to go to work. The police entered, searched her room, and took away all her Falun Gong books. They arrested her and her husband. At the police station, a policeman beat her brutally. Zhong Wei, the chief of the police station, asked her where she got the Falun Gong books and materials. He also reported it to his supervisor, and four plain-clothes policemen abused and threatened her during interrogation.

Ms. Li Liwen was held in the police station without having anything to eat for a whole day. Zhong Wei did not even allow her to go to the toilet. Not until 4 p.m. did the headmaster and the director of the school bring her some food, but Zhong Wei still did not allow her to eat. Because she was being starved and was so scared, she became dizzy. She was taken to several hospitals, but none accepted her. Her husband was charged with obstructing the execution of police duty and was detained for 10 days. Before he was released, he gave the policemen 400 yuan¹ and asked them not to beat his wife.

When the police took Ms. Li to the labour camp, the camp authorities sent her back because she had hypertension and heart disease. As the police pushed her back into the police vehicle, Zhong Wei grabbed her hair and slammed her head into the seat. Zhong Wei also said a lot of abusive thingss to her. Back at the police station, the officers handcuffed her to a bed for the entire night. The next day, they demanded 1,400 yuan from Ms. Li's family for medical treatment. Her family was really worried and brought another 1,000 yuan for the chief of the police station, hoping Ms. Li would not get a severe sentence. However, upper-level officials at the police department had decided to sentence her to one year in a forced labour camp the day before. Later, the hospital gave her a medical check-up, found she was not mentally disoriented, and sent her to the No.3 Detention Centre in Jilin City. At that time, Ms. Li had black and blue bruises all over her.

After she was arrested, the leading group and teachers from her school, the kids she taught, and the parents of these kids tried various ways to contact the police station and related departments to request the release of Ms. Li. All of these attempts failed. On August 4th, 2008, her family took 1,000 yuan to Zhong Wei, the chief of the local police station. Because she had not been accepted by the labour camp, she was taken back to the police station, where they forced her to sign a guarantee letter. Her family took her to the hospital because she was in very poor condition. At the hospital, the doctors found a tumour in her uterus, but she was too weak to have surgery.

Changchunlu Police Station, Jilin City:
Chief Wang Hui: 86-13514427888 (Mobile)
Political Head Song Huojun: 86-13944639567 (Mobile)

Note

1. "Yuan" is the Chinese currency; 500 yuan is equal to the average monthly income of an urban worker in China.

Chinese version available at http://www.minghui.ca/mh/articles/2008/8/23/184605.html